Alternatives to capitalism There is no alternative to capitalism? Really?

We are led to believe that an economic system with endlessly repeated cycles, costly bailouts for financiers and now austerity for most people is the best human beings can do? Capitalism's recurring tendencies toward extremes and deepening inequalities of income, wealth, and political and cultural power require resignation and acceptance because there is no alternative? We are constantly told that we live in a Capitalist society. But what does Capitalism mean? The word comes from the Latin capitalis, meaning of the head, and the relation of this concept to the later financial connotation of the word capital is unclear. Its first use in that sense was actually the word capitale, meaning stock or property. The basic building unit of capitalism is the corporation, and these first started in the 1600s. The development of the corporation was spurred on by the improvement of sailing and navigation technology, and the ensuing boom of the shipping industry. This is why the root word mer, meaning sea is at the heart of the word mercantile, and why we still say shipping when we are referring to the transport of goods, no matter the method. The improvement of seafaring led to the blossoming of a new form of economy. Now merchants could sail to India, Asia, Africa, or even the Americas, and trade an unprecedented variety of goods. Corporations are a type of company that offers limited liability to the stockholders, and were originally only established through an act of state. Most people rarely know who actually runs a corporation, or the interests that own and control them; ownership is hidden and spread out among various trusts, holding companies, and corporations; you wont typically see a family name. The contradiction between capitalism and democracy A democracy is a system of government in which not only the voice of the people is heard but the interests and well being of all citizens are paramount. The existence of classes poses a serious problem for democracy, since classes presuppose contradictory interests in different parts (the different classes) of the society. But capitalist society is premised on classdiametrically opposed interests for owners and workers, the exploitation of labor for investors/employers profit. The agenda of capitalism is to downgrade skilled workers, create a willingness to work for lower wages, deny sustenance to single parents, and so forth. That is a remarkably anti-democratic agenda. To achieve this goal they have been working hard: "In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply." Rockefeller Foundation Director of Charity, Frederick Gates, 1913 Then is understandable why: Fraudelent Education Reform in America.

Capitalism is based on a power hierarchy in which investors/employers control the lives of those who work to create profits (capital). This is said in corporate rule: Command and control, which is military style. But democracy proposes that each person shall be an autonomous individual engaged in a common endeavor to create the greatest possible advancement and self-expression of all persons. Capitalism is individualistic. Democracy is communitarian, i.e., it seeks to strike a balance among individual interests. Capitalism seeks benefits for a few based on the exploitation of the many. Democracy requires that people come together to decide what is in the best interests of the community as a whole, regardless of class-based or individual interests. A fully functioning political democracy could not tolerate a capitalist economy. The power elite knows this, which is why the U.S. government has tried to subvert democracy in every country in which U.S. capitalists have tried to exploit resources and labor. A country in which the people as a whole actually make decisions about their common destiny would, of course, not permit such exploitation. "Democracy subverts capitalism": it works on diametrically opposed principles of the value of human life and the worth of collective decision-making. The power elites does not have to take the same extreme steps in the U.S. because, as Domhoff explains throughout his book, and Parenti as well, it has already taken control of the "democratic" forms of the political system and has reduced political culture to mere "consumption" of the ideology of individualism and consumerism. The corporations which form the foundations of its economy function more like autocracies. Main point is that these two models - capitalism and democracy - seem innately opposed to each other, and that a society couldn't at heart be both. This could explain a lot of the corporate bribing and electoral fraud that goes on in the US and other purported democracies; the drive for supremacy that capitalism creates would effectively undermine any true efforts at democracy. Get rich quick schemes in the capitalist business world, (buyouts, IPOs, conglomerates, acquisitions, mergers, and the stock market), do not actually work. Profit existing in the capitalist business world, or millionaires existing within capitalism, is based on pathological deception, as The South Sea Bubble. Tea Baggers have got it all wrong. While they dress up in their revolutionary garb and pretend to be Boston Tea Party folks, they really have no idea why there was a real tea revolt in 1773. They think that it was a revolt against a tax hike but in reality it was revolt against a tax cut for a single company. Back then, all of the tea shops had to pay the tea tax but the worlds largest corporation at the time, the British East India Company, was made exempt from the existing tax. The tea protest was a protest against a corporate tax cut. If today's tea baggers would ever bother to look around, they would find that they are in favor of corporate tax cuts. Laissez-faire is main doctrine of capitalism. For democracy it's Austrian school. Let's go find some marks to support this theory According to the Worldwide Governance Indicators report, which ranks countries by the amount of freedom citizens have to voice opinions and select a government, the U.S. tops out at 35th place--a drop from its rank of 22nd in 2005 because of a decreased trust in public officials and restrictions on the freedom of the press. "The U.S. is not a model," says Daniel Kaufmann (World Bank), a lead author of the report, but it is far from the doghouse. Time magazine Sept. 06, 2007 Beacon (of democracy) can be also a lighthouse role of which is to keep vessels away from dangerous waters.

On a scale of 0 to 100, 0 being most equal, the United States posted a 43.2 on a world income inequality scale, according to data from World Bank. CNNMoney reported that the United States has a higher level of income inequality than Europe, Canada and South Korea. Washington Post The toil index. It measures the number of hours that median earners must toil each month to be able to rent a house in a school district of at least average quality. (Could the median earner aspire to any less?) Unlike per capita G.D.P., which, apart from brief recessions, grew at a strong and steady rate from the end of World War II until the recent downturn, the toil index has been much more volatile. Its movements suggest that recent increases in income inequality have imposed substantial economic costs on middle-income families. From 1950 to 1970, incomes grew rapidly and at about the same rate almost 3 percent annually, on average for families at all income levels. From 1970 to 2000, however, that pattern changed sharply. Incomes of the top 1 percent grew more than threefold, while median household income grew less than 15 percent. NY Times Basic thing in theory of economy is exchange goods which contradicts with Finances-Insurance-Real Estate Economy or Reaganomics. Compare minimum wages system in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Holland, Belgium, Austria with USA. Compare countries by GDP per capita, but take military-industrial complex and war profit in count. As the military-industrial complex lacks a mechanism for meaningful economic feedback and correction, once the economic activity has been set in motion, there is no true method of correction. This leads to the second implication, which is that the permanent war economy is self-extending. Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961 Also see World Order, Failed States and Terrorism , by Henry C.K. Liu.
FIRE Economy

Economists refer to different sectors of an economy by groups of economically related businesses. For example, the Manufacturing sector includes Food Manufacturing, Apparel Manufacturing, Wood Product Manufacturing, Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing, and Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing. The Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate or FIRE sector is composed of Commercial Banks, Savings & Loans, Credit Unions, Finance / Credit Companies, Securities & Investment, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds, Private Equity & Investment Firms, Insurance, Real Estate, Mortgage Bankers & Brokers Accountants. The FIRE Economy is one of two economies that operate in the United States, the UK, and other countries that developed economic policies that give FIRE industries tax, regulatory, and monetary policy advantages over productive industries. The other economy is the Productive Economy that is comprised of businesses that produce value-added goods and services. The Productive Economy grows based on profits from sales of goods and services produced by adding intellectual property and other human value inputs. The FIRE Economy operates by extracting economic rents, such as interest on debt, from the rest of the economy. Wealth is generated in the Productive Economy by the accumulation of equity value and in the FIRE Economy from economic rents and capital gains generated asset price inflation without an increase in value. Examples of asset price inflation periods in the US are technology stocks from 1998 to 2000 and

residential and commercial real estate from 2002 to 2006. Over a period of decades the FIRE Economy has become a dominant source of income in the United States. The total sum of payments within the FIRE Economy are now many times larger than in the Productive Economy. The FIRE Economy in the US grew from 1980 to 2006, and began to disintegrate with the collapse of the housing bubble in 2006 followed in in early 2007 by the crash in the market for securitized debt that financed the housing bubble in the US, followed by the US banking system in 2008. A collapsing FIRE Economy is accompanied by debt deflation, falling demand, debt defaults, business failures, and rising unemployment. Boom-Bust economic cycles The term boom and bust refers to a great buildup in the price of a particular commodity or, alternately, the localized rise in an economy, often based upon the value of a single commodity, followed by a downturn as the commodity price falls due to a change in economic circumstances or the collapse of unrealistic expectations. Boom and bust phenomena have existed for centuries. During a "boom" period, buyers find themselves paying increasingly higher prices until the "bust", at which time the goods and commodities for which they have paid inflated prices may end up as valueless or nearly so. Some history The Gracchi Brothers The Gracchi, Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus, were Roman brothers who tried to reform Rome's social and political structure to help the lower classes, in the 2nd century B.C. Events surrounding the politics of the Gracchi led to the decline and eventual fall of the Roman Republic. From the Gracchi to the end of the Roman Republic, personalities dominated Roman politics; major battles were not with foreign powers, but civil. The period of the decline of the Roman Republic begins with the Gracchi meeting their bloody ends and ends with the assassination of Caesar. This was followed by the rise of the first Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar. To Tiberius Gracchus, the biggest problem was that there were not enough small farmers. He wanted to give land to some of the many free, poor unemployed. These men would be happy to farm, but there wasn't enough land, so he proposed that the state should take over land held illegally by large landholders and distribute it to the poor. Unfortunately for the plan of Tiberius, the people illegally holding the land were the powerful nobles whose families had held the land for generations. Reasons why the Roman Empire fell - Unemployment of the Working Classes (The Plebs), Failing Economy, The 'Mob' and the cost of the 'Games'(Bread and games= welfare and drugs), Decline in Ethics and Values, Constant Wars and Heavy Military Spending, Barbarians learned military tactics and politics. At final attack aqueducts were destroyed, Rome population declined by 90%. What will happen if oil lines will be cut from the West? Bankers to Europe's kings: 13th - 14th century AD During the 13th century bankers from north Italy, collectively known as Lombards, gradually replaced the Jews in their traditional role as money-lenders to the rich and powerful. The business

skills of the Italians are enhanced by their invention of double-entry book-keeping. Creative accountancy enables them to avoid the Christian sin of usury; interest on a loan is presented in the accounts either as a voluntary gift from the borrower or as a reward for the risk taken. The Medici created a lucrative partnership with another medieval power, the Catholic Church. In what had to be one of the most ingenious enterprises of all time, the Medici bank collected 10% of your earnings for the Church. If you couldn't pay, you faced excommunication - a one-way ticket to hell. The Pope himself had a massive overdraft, and the Medici bank became the most profitable business in Europe. By 1434, half the bank's revenue came from the Rome branch, which was in fact little more than a mobile bank that followed the Pope around the world. Papal connections gave the Medici bank immense power, soon everyone wanted an account with the Pope's personal bank. On one occasion the nomination of a new bishop was delayed, until his father a Cardinal - had repaid their debts to the Medici bank. And the Medici kept ahead of their banking rivals because of the invention of limited liability. Giovanni di Bicci had set up a franchise system, where regional branch managers shared a stake in the business. Giovanni also banned loans to princes and kings, who were notoriously bad investments. Consequentially, the Medici business remained in the black while its competitors lost fortunes. See more in book of Tupper Saussy: Rulers of Evil. Saussy points that Roman (empire)-Catholic church runs the world. Are there any signs? Alumni of Georgetown university as Bill Clinton or J.M. Barroso who controls EU. In the US Supreme Court are Catholics and donmehs only so decisions of the Supreme court follow above: Yes, they give plebs free speech but if it goes about politics-propertybusiness-equity, in cases like eminent domain, corporate personhood or fraudelent presidential elections, the Supreme Court does what is set for: duct tape eyes of plebs. The Roman Empire developed legal system Jus Gentium, roots of English Common Law. The Jus Gentium was comprised of common ingredients in both the customs of the old (non-Roman) Italian tribes and the new (non-Italian) provinces that were compatible with Roman concepts of law. Whenever a particular usage was seen to be practiced by a large number of separate cultures in common with Roman Law, it was set down as part of the Law. The Jus Gentium was designed to govern the peoples of Italy and the provinces, without giving them Roman citizenship and the other rights of the ius (Jus) civile. The Jus Gentium should not be confused with the international law or Jus Feciale - the law of negotiation and diplomacy. "The 2nd-century Roman jurist Ulpian, however, divided law into three branches: natural law, which existed in nature and governed animals as well as humans; the law of nations, which was distinctively human; and civil law, which was the body of laws specific to a people. Slavery, for instance, was supported by the ius gentium, even though under natural law all are born free (liberi). In this tripartite division of law, property rights might be considered a part of the ius gentium, but not of natural law. Hermogenianus, a Roman jurist of the second half of the 3rd century, described the ius gentium as comprising wars, national interests, kingship and sovereignty, rights of ownership, property boundaries, settlements, and commerce, "including contracts of buying and selling and letting and hiring, except for certain contractual elements distinguished through ius civile".The ius gentium was thus in practice important in facilitating commercial law. Watch this video. Looks like it works till these days.

And boom-bust Market Crashes: The Tulip and Bulb Craze The amount the market declined from peak to bottom: This number is difficult to calculate, but, we can tell you that at the peak of the market, a person could trade a single tulip for an entire estate, and, at the bottom, one tulip was the price of a common onion. The South Sea Bubble. Did deluge all, and avarice creeping on, Spread, like a low-born mist, and hid the sun. Statesmen and patriots plied alike the stocks, Peeress and butler shared alike the box; And judges jobbed, and bishops bit the town, And mighty dukes packed cards for half-a-crown: Britain was sunk in lucre's sordid charms. Pope. THE SOUTH-SEA COMPANY was originated by the celebrated Harley, Earl of Oxfordas a Tory competitor for the Whig Bank of England- The City-East India Company, in the year 1711, with the view of restoring public credit, which had suffered by the dismissal of the Whig ministry, and of providing for the discharge of the army and navy debentures, and other parts of the floating debt, amounting to nearly ten millions sterling. A company of merchants, at that time without a name, took this debt upon themselves, and the government agreed to secure them, for a certain period, the interest of six per cent. To provide for this interest, amounting to 600,000l. per annum, the duties upon wines, vinegar, India goods, wrought silks, tobacco, whale-fins, and some other articles, were rendered permanent. The monopoly of the trade to the South Seas was granted, and the company, being incorporated by Act of Parliament, assumed the title by which it has ever since been known. The minister took great credit to himself for his share in this transaction, and the scheme was always called by his flatterers "the Earl of Oxford's masterpiece." Capitalism is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. That is how our capitalist's economies work. Those at the bottom are subject to the rigors of the free market. Those at the top are as pampered and protected. Oposite to capitalism are social-democracies ...In Bismark's Germany they rejected radical or Marxian socialism and advocated what they called state socialism. William H. Dawson, in his sympathetic exposition, Bismarck and State Socialism (1890), explained the difference: "Socialism would abolish the existing political order altogether, while State Socialism would use the State for the accomplishment of great economic and social purposes, especially restoring to it the function, which Frederick the Great held to be the principle business of the State, of 'holding the balance' between classes and parties." Bismarckian state socialism meant to save the established order from revolutionary upheaval and societal disintegration by admitting many of the criticisms that socialists made against a market

economy-exploitation of the workers by employers, self-interested behavior that fails to serve the general welfare, poverty of the many in the midst of material riches enjoyed by the few-and by introducing a series of interventionist and welfarist policies that were to improve the economic lot of the masses while saving what was good and worth preserving in the traditional social order. As von Schmoller expressed it, state socialism proposed "the reestablishment of a friendly relationship between social classes, the removal or modification of injustice, with the introduction of a social legislation which promotes progress and guarantees the moral and material elevation of the lower and middle classes." The German Historical School and the state socialists also rejected the "orthodox" laissez-faire economics of the classical economists and classical liberals... This is how social-democracies are born. http://www.fff.org/freedom/0194b.asp Laissez-faire of neoliberal economics is causing lots of death. During Potato Famine in Ireland and Late Victorian Holocaust laissez-faire applied: In adhering to laissez-faire, the British government also did not interfere with the English-controlled export business in Irish-grown grains. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 emerged in part from Indian resistance to the consequences of the laissez-faire capitalism the British East India Company had imposed on them. Note: There was also Dutch East India Company spreading freedom,democracy and death worldwide. "Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world." Henry Kissinger Wikipedia is squaring circle of capitalist's colonialism: The Indian Rebellion of 1857 had diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes. The sepoys, a generic term used for native Indian soldiers of the Bengal Army, had their own list of grievances against the BEIC Raj, mainly caused by the ethnic gulf between the British officers and their Indian troops. (Note: If you see your family members are dying because lack of food which is being exported...Afghanistan, Iraq is easier to understand) The British had issued new gunpowder cartridges (capitalism and gunpowder goes hand by hand) that were widely believed to be greased with cow or pig fat, which insulted both Hindus and Muslims. Other than Indian units of the British East India Company's army, much of the resistance came from the old aristocracy, who were seeing their power steadily eroded under the British rule. The British East India Company (BEIC flag) was a massive export company that was the force behind much of the colonization of India. The power of the Company took nearly 150 years to build. As early as 1693, the annual expenditure in political "gifts" to men in power reached nearly 90,000 pounds. In bribing the Government, the Company was allowed to operate in overseas markets despite the fact that the cheap imports of South Asian silk, cotton, and other products hurt domestic business (actually it destroyed British economy, similar to import from China in current days). By 1767, the Company was

forced into an agreement to pay 400,000 pounds into the National Exchequer annually. By 1848, however, the Company's financial difficulties had reached a point where expanding revenue required expanding British territories in South Asia massively. (Colonized people gave up to brutal military power and stopped working) The Company began to set aside adoption rights of native princes and began the process of annexation of more than a dozen independent Rajas between 1848 and 1854. In an article published in The New York Daily Tribune on July 28, 1857, Karl Marx notes that "... in 1854 the Raj of Berar, which comprise 80,000 square miles (210,000 km2) of land, a population from four to five million, and enormous treasures, was forcibly seized". The Gold Standard. Adopted by Britain in 1821. Most of the developed and nearly developed world followed suit in the 1870s. As a result, vast quantities of demonetarized silver flooded the world market, depreciating the currency of India and China, the major nations outside the hegemonic gold bloc. Under British domination and the new Gold Standard, the value of India's silver-standard rupee fell by over one-third between 1873 and 1895. The consequent inflation due to silver depreciation destroyed peasant savings and pushed peasant households into a usurious credit system. The British tax system took much and gave back little. The planned neglect of irrigation and other infrastructure by the British was to push the Indian farmers into the production of cash crops. This and other similar policies dramatically undermined villages and regional economy. It should also be noted that during the period from 1757 to 1947 there was no increase in Indias per capita income. When an El Nio drought restituted the farmers of the Deccan plateau in 1876 there was a net surplus of rice and wheat in India. But the viceroy, Lord Lytton, insisted that nothing should prevent its export to England. In 1877 and 1878, at the height of the famine, grain merchants exported a record 6.4m hundred weight of wheat. As the peasants began to starve, officials were ordered "to discourage relief works in every possible way". The Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877 prohibited "at the pain of imprisonment private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market fixing of grain prices". The only relief permitted in most districts was hard labor, from which anyone in an advanced state of starvation was turned away. In the labor camps, the workers were given less food than inmates of Buchenwald. In 1877, monthly mortality in the camps equated to an annual death rate of 94%. Marx wrote about capital's destruction of the old social organizations of the societies it enters into, either originally or by force, that "the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire". Charles Dickens: "I wish I were commander-in-chief in India ... I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race." The average standard of living for the majority of the people was quite higher in India and China than in Europe during the 18th Century, their degree of productivity in terms of manufacturing was higher as well. But what is most important in Mike Davies's book is the enormity of what it describes: the incredibly large-scale death of the subjugated and exploited peoples of what would later form the 'Third' or developing world. By even modest estimates the various preventable famines in China during 18501900 alone must have killed some 30-60 million people, and in India probably again anywhere between

30 and 85 million. Then if we add to that the deaths in Brazil (not exploited by foreign powers this time, but by their own capitalist plutocracy), of various African nations, as well as the costs of rebellion and civil war caused by the social disintegration resulting from invasion and colonialism, we get quite a pretty picture: indeed the 20th Century can hardly be considered bloodier than the 19th was. And this is called, by historians, the "Belle poque"! One wonders if those who write so-called "Black Books of Communism" etc. are even aware of the lethality of capital. Based on such scholars as Bairroch, Parthsarathi, Gura and Pomeranz, Davis brings forth many facts that shore up his argument. 1) In 1800 India's share of the world manufactured product was four times that of Britain, and China's share was even higher. By 1900 India was fully under British control and the ration was 8-1 in England's favor. 2) In 1789 the living standards of China and Western Europe were roughly comparable and it appeared that China was making even better progress with its ecological problems. Naturally, a century later Europeans and Americans were much better off. 3) Despite all the many claims made on behalf of British rule in India, Indian per capita income stayed the same from 1759 to 1947. And contrary to the Malthusian argument, its population didn't grow very much. 4) Indian and Chinese rulers actually had before 1800 a good record of mitigating famines, and one British statistician suggested that whereas for the previous two millennia there was one major famine a century, under British rule there was one every four years. Simply. From Ireland and India, China and Brazil under capitalist ideology of laissez-faire, was food exported while tens of millions were starved to death. It can happen very soon in Greece, Spain or Italy where the heirs of BEIC as Troika impose austerity programs after various quick rich ponzi schemes were run on their soil. BEIC had great partners who run business to this days. And there is couple really hard working landholders on this planet: Windsor aka Saxe/Coburg/Gotha-Nassau/Orange-Hanover-Hohenzolern clan or Vatican. Since Gracchi brothers failed reforms not much changed, ain't it? Laissez-fair ideology should be put on the same platform as slave labor camps during Nazi era or ideological communism, which was not real communism, with all consequences for parties involved like The City of London. Yes, there is an alternative to capitalism: Mondragon shows the way. The Mondragn Cooperative Corporation (MCC), the largest consortium of worker-owned companies, has developed a different way of doing businessa way that puts workers, not shareholders, first. Legacoop Cooperative in Bologna, Italy Empowers Worker-Owners. To see that there are other options, you have to travel to the richest city in Italy: Bologna -Communist Bologna (years ago the Italian Communist Party renamed itself the Democratic Party of the Left, or P.D.S.). Just as greater poverty and misery are threatening the realization of economic and social rights, the repression of growing social protest is threatening civil and political rights. Social rights are those rights arising from the social contract, in contrast to natural rights which arise from the natural law, but before the establishment of legal rights by positive law.

One must understand how words are discredited to promote capitalism. For example: It is said that communism is system where all businesses are owned by state. That is nonsense. Everything is shared by all in communism. Communism planted by bankers is not communism. Another example is that Marx's theory stands behind bolshevik revolution with milions of dead. Nonse. Marx stood against power elites not against serfs. There is also another misleading theory, that we must thank capitalism for science and economic growth. Nonsense. Progress was made during milenias from use fire, thru wheel, plow, horse, calendar, astronomy, math, geometry and so on without stock holders from Wall Street. In reality it was power elites who were breaking the progress. Real progress started after Gutenberg developed book press and education spreaded on general population. Main force is that people try to make life easy. Real story also is, that power elites realized power of science so they concentrate as much top brains as they can under their shield. Money talks. One thing what power elites miscaclulated was internet. They did not realize what will happen when all people arround the globe will be connected to all available informations, except Top Secret marked in archives for protecting power elites from exposing their crimes. According to Michael Parenti there are still Cassified documents from american civil war and he asks what is so important for national security in documents 150 years old. Let's talk Albert Einstein: Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept "society" means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society -- in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence -- that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word "society... Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?... This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career. It looks like cooperatives get it right. They are like democratic Switzerland. They do not have to spread their system by military. People comes voluntarily to learn.